Rushed to completion in the brief period of three months, the Monitor was barely commissioned in time to render, at Hampton Roads, the tremendous service which in a few brief hours revolutionized naval warfare, made obsolete the navies of the world, rescued the Union navy from crushing disaster, and immortalized the name of John Ericsson, her designer and constructor.
The Monitor had been intended to serve with Admiral Farragut’s fleet at New Orleans, but a crisis nearer at hand made a sudden change of plans necessary. The Monitor left New York on the afternoon of March 6, 1862, under command of Lieutenant John L. Worden, U.S.N., and arrived at Hampton Roads on the evening of March 8, after a stormy passage.
Meanwhile the armored Confederate ram Merrimac had created havoc with the great wooden warships of the Federal navy. On the seventh, the Merrimac had rammed and sunk the frigate Cumberland, and then destroyed the Congress, vessels powerless to inflict injury on the iron sides of the Confederate ram. The tall frigates, St. Lawrence, Roanoke, and Minnesota, powerless to resist or to escape, awaited their inevitable destruction on the following day.
But on that eventful morning, as the Merrimac steamed out into the stream to complete her work, which would break the blockade the Federal forces had established, the Monitor glided out from under the stern of the Minnesota, looking for all the world like “a barrel-head afloat with a cheese-box on top of it.”
For four hours these two strange vessels fought this greatest duel of naval history, which, on the ships and the shores, was watched by the anxious eyes of soldiers and sailors of North and South to whom the outcome was of such tremendous import. Manœuvring like boxers, the two vessels circled each other, black smoke pouring from their low funnels and the red flame of the great guns spurting from the gun-ports. As she had rammed the Cumberland, so did the Merrimac endeavor to crush the Monitor with her ram; but the Monitor either slipped past her heavier and more ungainly adversary or allowed the Merrimac to push her aside. Round and round the circular turret swung, turning away in order to load the two guns which protruded, and then swinging back to deliver a volley of metal against the plated sloping side of the Merrimac.
Unable to damage the Monitor and herself severely pounded by the forty-one shots which the Monitor had fired, the Merrimac finally withdrew, leaving the strange warship of the Swedish-American inventor the victor. The Minnesota, the Roanoke, and the St. Lawrence were saved. The blockade remained unbroken.
In the words of a Confederate who witnessed the battle, “The Monitor was by immense odds the most formidable vessel of war on this planet.”
During the following years of the war, Ericsson devoted his vast energies to the service of his country, and at great financial loss and immeasurable personal sacrifice constructed a large number of vessels of the Monitor type for the navy.
With the close of the war Ericsson continued the marvelous series of inventions which he had given to the world. For a number of years he gave his best thought to the building and mounting of heavy guns; and later he turned his energies to the construction of a practical submarine torpedo. In these later experiments he personally invested over a hundred thousand dollars.
From the United States and foreign countries came recognition of his services to the world. In 1866 the Department of State offered him the appointment of Commissioner to the Universal Exposition at Paris. The previous year he had received a resolution of thanks from the Swedish Parliament. Among other honors conferred upon him were his election to the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, honorary memberships in the Royal Military Academy of Science of Stockholm and the Royal Military Academy of Sweden, a joint resolution of thanks from the United States Congress, a resolution from the State of New York, the Rumford gold and silver medals, and a gold medal from the Society of Iron Masters of Sweden. In 1863 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Wesleyan University; and later he was made a Knight Commander with the Grand Cross of the order of the North Star and a Commander of St. Olaf, two Swedish honors. In later years came many other distinctions, not only from the United States and Sweden, but from Denmark, Spain, and Austria.